After leaving Germany in 1933 Horenstein had much less contact with choral music but always relished the chance to include it in concerts when opportunities came his way. In 1953 he wrote to Karol Rathaus that he “enjoyed immensely” working with the chorus for a performance of Boris Godunov in Italy and that “there is simply nothing so wonderful in interpretation like working with voices”.

He later described the human voice as “the most musically expressive instrument there is”, and whenever he included choral music in his concerts he invariably insisted on taking separate choir rehearsals himself, sometimes against the wishes of the chorus masters concerned. Indeed, some of his most successful performances, from Beethoven's Missa Solemnis to the Brahms Requiem to Mahler's Eighth Symphony, involved extensive work with choirs and soloists and the same can be said for the two Mozart items presented here, possibly Horenstein's first stereo recordings, in which the celebrated Viennese chorus and soloists give him their most refined, stylish and rhythmically vital singing, with phrasing of unusual attention and delicacy.

On March 29, 1947, Felix Salmond gave a recital at the Juilliard School commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of his American debut. The program was one he had played on more than one occasion over the years: the five Beethoven Cello Sonatas. The following year, Salmond and his performing partner, fellow Juilliard faculty member Leonid Hambro, returned to the school’s Concert Hall to make a private recording of the sonatas, three of which were issued in 1960 on a private LP as a fund-raiser to help establish a scholarship in his name.

These recordings are revelations in several ways. First, they show that Salmond maintained his technique even in his sixtieth year. His last commercial recordings were made in 1930, when he was forty-two; and although he continued to concertize and appear on broadcasts, these Beethoven sonatas are the only published documents of his playing after that. But more importantly, they present Salmond in the finest recorded sound he ever received: they have the presence, and nearly the frequency range, of high fidelity mono tape recordings.

It is unfortunate that Ania Dorfmann is remembered today almost exclusively for being the soloist in Arturo Toscanini’s only studio recording of a Beethoven piano concerto. Her career extended far beyond the Maestro’s orbit, as the present reissue demonstrates.

The two concertos on the present reissue feature The Philadelphia Orchestra in its summer guise, and were in fact the last recordings made under the “Robin Hood Dell” name. Like her Beethoven and Chopin LPs, they were originally released on RCA’s budget Bluebird label, but were promoted to full-price Red Seal shortly thereafter (LM-2102). The Carnaval comes from her last (and only stereo) recording, an all-Schumann program which also included his Fantasiestücke.

Pristine Classical - what the reviewers say:

"These transfers represent such clean, careful, and intelligent work that they still demand to be heard" - Fanfare "Pristine Audio is to be commended for their stunning remastering" - Classical CD Review "Recording quality such as could only be dreamed of back then..." - MusicWeb International "The Pristine sound has a clarity, body, presence and focus..." - International Record Review "Quite a revelation - they've done an amazing job!" - CD Review, BBC Radio Three "Studio 8-H is transformed into a free, open space, as beautifully atmospheric as the originals were dead" - Classical Recordings Quarterly "The SACD was nice, but next to the Pristine remasterings, the piano was rather wooden-sounding and somewhat opaque..." - Audiophile Audition

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"This is how the music sounded in the golden era of great Wagnerian singing, largely between the two world wars. Some of these singers have been perhaps equaled but never surpassed (Leider, Schorr), and some have not even been equaled (Melchior)." - Fanfare